Gifted Gorgeousness for April

WOW! half way through April already.  The weather is behaving much more like mid-March with all the crazy temperature ups and downs.  We had snow a week ago, it was 82 F on Saturday and it's 40 F something today. 

I got sidetracked tonight so this will be short.  Yesterday was the official check-in day for .  Gifted Gorgeousness is hosted by the lovely Jo at Serendipitous Stitching and is designed for us to thank those wonderful folks that have gifted us with stitch things or show the things we're stitching for gifts or anything else we can shoehorn into the theme.  Except for my Small SAL piece, all of my pieces this year are gifts (all two of them) - I've just recently added three more projects but I can't show any of them right now as they are surprises.

Goldie is a gift for my in-laws.  It's a stocking that was charted by Heaven and Earth Designs of their German Shepherd puppy Goldie she has some really long registration name that I can't remember but her call name is Goldie.  Last month she was here:

and yesterday she was here:

I will withhold judgment for a while but the blue in her nose is a major distraction for me.  I am happy with my progress on this one. 

My other piece is Japanese Zen Garden by Chatelaine.  This is a gift for my son.  At last month's check-in it was here:

and when it went on the frame last night it was here:

I finally figured out that the corner is a water feature splashing around the rocks.

Not included in Gifted Gorgeousness is Just Nan's Pearl Orchid which went from here:

to here:

The colors are much truer in the top picture - amazing what lighting will do as they were both taken with the same camera.

It is too early in the month to report, but I have officially blown my Stich from Stash budget.  I had patterns but not fabric for the projects I need to start, so while only a bit over, I went over.  Oh well, it could have been much worse.

And before I forget, it's also TUSAL time.  Sharon at It's Daffycat hosts this SAL.  Click on the link for all the rules, but they can be summed up as: Save your bits and scraps, put them in a jar, take a picture and post.  This is a "because we can" type SAL.

Spot is not as enthused about being the model cat as Trouble was last month.